How Facebook Tracks Users

Social sites that track user activity and sells user data is Evil, hands-down.

There have been number of concerns which have taken all the Big players to court. Whether its Google over Wifi streetview data, or Microsoft’s SmartScreen, one thing is pretty clear, Facebook wins all Evil crowns.

Facebook is known for breaking all the privacy boundaries and number of incidents & allegations are above all. Facebook is known to store your private data and never delete it. May it be the photos you upload to facebook, those are never deleted and the social media giant holds rights to use it in any way it wants whether you like it or not. For instance, when you delete your photos from facebook, your photos are not really deleted from the server.

However, there is one bigger concern that goes beyond your activity feed. Its’ your Web behavior. Facebook connect can track user’s behavior around the web, your every move.. This has been proven long ago, and the tools let you monitor exactly that.

Using Abine DNT+ tool (Do not Track plus), we noticed that Facebook has more than 200 “trackers” watching user’s internet activity.
Abine defines trackers as “a request that a webpage tries to make your browser perform that will share information intended to record, profile, or share your online activity.” The trackers come in the shape of cookies, Javascript, 1-pixel beacons, and Iframes.
But is that legal. Yes, in a way coz users and pundits call it spying but advertisers and Facebook calls it Targeting.

Not only do they track your behavior, they consume 25% of the bandwidth too.
Technologies like cookies, pixel tags (“pixels”), and local storage are used to deliver, secure, and understand products, services, and ads, on and off Facebook.

These trackers, capture information like your geographic location, which other sites you’ve visited, what you click, and your Facebook username.

What all is Facebook Tracking from your Web Activity?

Well, other than Facebook is everywhere, the Facebook trackers have fairly specific interests. According to BusinessInsider’s experiment, Facebook is most interested in 3 things:

What you are reading on the web.

What you are linking to from social media sites.

What you are buying.

What Facebook has to say about it?

They don’t really care as long as they make money out of it. They call this tracking beneficial for the users and Advertisers equally.

How you can get rid of Facebook Tracking

Install Do Not Track Plus for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and block Facebook from tracking you on every website you visit.